Checking in with Cong Ma

A lot more than 100 intercontinental artists utilized for this year’s Younger Artist Award. Cong Ma was selected as just one of the finalists. She received an unrestricted income award of US$1,000 and exhibited her get the job done in Platina’s booth at Schmuck, in July 2022.

Cong Ma, Fine Art 101 Group
Cong Ma, Good Art 101 Group, 2021, brooch, sterling silver, good silver, acrylic paint, 30 x 30 x 40 mm, picture: Shawn Zhang

AJF’s Younger Artist Award acknowledges guarantee, innovation, and individuality, advancing the occupations of climbing artists. The opposition was open up to makers of wearable art age 35 and under who are not at the moment enrolled in a qualified instruction software. Judging was based on originality, depth of strategy, and high-quality of craftsmanship. This year’s jurors have been 2020 AJF Artist Award winner MJ Tyson (US) collector and gallerist Karen Rotenberg (US) and educator and curator Chequita Nahar (The Netherlands).

Ma’s operate signifies a group of remarkable items of contemporary jewellery. We requested her to inform us a little bit about her background and views on the long run of the field.

Bonnie Levine:  Congratulations on getting a single of the 5 finalists for the 2022 Young Artist Award. What an accomplishment! Be sure to introduce oneself to our readers. How did you grow to be fascinated in jewelry? What inspires your operate?    

Cong Ma: I am a painter, a jewelry maker, and a designer. Born to a family of artists, I have been drawing at any time due to the fact I could decide up a pen. I observed my fascination in artwork jewelry because it is a exceptional art form unbiased of any performance nonetheless near to the persons donning it.

Cong Ma, Fine Art 101 Ring
Cong Ma, Wonderful Art 101 Ring, 2021, sterling silver, brass, good silver, acrylic paint, 95 x 22 x 1 mm, photo: Shawn Zhang

What does getting a finalist suggest for you? Do you consider it will affect you going ahead?

Cong Ma: Getting a finalist helps make me want to adhere with artwork jewellery. I see the creativeness between all the finalists, and I am grateful to be linked to this group, primarily after a publish-COVID period of growing technologies and quarantine. By staying in this neighborhood, my awareness will preserve up with the instances, and which is crucial to an artist’s improvement.

Cong Ma, Fine Art 101 Necklace
Cong Ma, Great Art 101 Necklace, 2021, sterling silver, brass, high-quality silver, acrylic paint, 300 x 34 x 58 mm, image: Shawn Zhang

Convey to us about the operate you utilized with. 

Cong Ma: I see jewellery as a signifies to an conclude for learning about all varieties of knowledge that interest me. My interest in geometry and bigger dimensions encouraged this system of get the job done. For illustration, a three-dimensional ball likely through a two-dimensional thing would look to be a circle expanding and then finding lesser right until it disappears. Furthermore, a 90-degree angle intersecting a slanted surface unfolded on to a two-dimensional aircraft is no for a longer time 90 degrees. These are interesting observations and phenomena. I would like to express these illusions by way of my operate in an summary way.

Cong Ma, Fine Art 101 Cross Cone
Cong Ma, Fine Artwork 101 Cross Cone, 2021, brooch, sterling silver, brass, wonderful silver, acrylic paint, 67 x 36 x 65 mm, image: Shawn Zhang

What excites you about the art jewellery field? 

Cong Ma: I delight in generating art jewellery simply because of the flexibility it provides me to converse about any subject matter in the globe that passions me in meaningful techniques.

Any frustrations that you see or have professional? 

Cong Ma: The relationship between my artwork and me is very all-natural. Any time I have an concept, I can understand about 90% of that thought, and I am always happy. If there ever were any frustrations, it may well be that I would like to study extra approaches in jewelry-producing to be in a position to specific extra of my tips. But that would need some time and motivation to finding out in the foreseeable future.

Cong Ma, Fine Art 101 Cubicle
Cong Ma, Great Art 101 Cubicle, 2021, brooch, sterling silver, brass, fantastic silver, acrylic paint, 67 x 36 x 65 mm, photograph: Shawn Zhang

Where by do you feel artwork jewelry is heading? Do you see any new and exciting tendencies?

Cong Ma: I visualize the art jewellery area likely in a number of strategies. To start with, mainly because the audience is somewhat little in comparison to other artwork fields, it could have the possible to improve quite major, to the extent that its definition results in being ambiguous. It could likely merge with trend, household furniture, or engineering in the kind of online games and NFT, which one particular can never have on. So folks might not want a bodily piece to put on and contact jewelry, but they could have an urge to affiliate, fantasize, and in the end convey.

Cong Ma, Fine Art 101 (detail)
Cong Ma, Wonderful Artwork 101 (detail), 2021, brooch, sterling silver, fine silver, acrylic paint, 30 x 30 x 40 mm, image: Shawn Zhang

Where by would you like to be 5 yrs from now?

Cong Ma: I want to keep on to assume about art jewelry philosophically. By way of my individual ordeals and exposures, I can acquire a experienced idea in style and design. I see it in the form of a treatise the place I would systematically analyze my views and have my artworks reflect those tips.

Congratulations yet again! Thank you for having the time to solution these inquiries.

This is the final of our interviews with the honorees. Go through the job interview with Younger Artist Award winner Mallory Weston below. Our interview with finalist Taisha Carrington is here. Check out Marion Delarue’s interview right here. You’ll uncover our interview with Aaron Decker listed here.

Cong Ma, Fine Art 101 Cross Cone Triangle
Cong Ma, Wonderful Art 101 Cross Cone Triangle, 2021, brooch, sterling silver, brass, fine silver, acrylic paint, 67 x 36 x 65 mm, image: Shawn Zhang

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